


Duty of Care

by Taifics



Series: Paradoxes [4]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Caring, Character Study, Doctor can't sleep, Doctor is doubtful, Doctor-Master-Missy-relations, F/M, Friendship, Gen, M/M, One Shot, Spoilers s10e12, changing, telepathic Master and Missy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 18:10:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11629071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taifics/pseuds/Taifics
Summary: Relationship between the Doctor, the Master and Missy is complex. The matter of caring has much more than just one meaning in their case.





	Duty of Care

The Doctor had curled himself up under the thin blanket and tried to fall asleep. His attempt was yet so obviously pointless. He was a Time Lord. He could not force himself to sleep like a human being. His body was awake. His mind was buzzing with myriads of thoughts of which the vast majority was as far from being enjoyable as they only could be. Bill, the one he swore to protect, was now a Cyberman. His failure, one among many previous, was horrific. Duty of care. _Duty of care_... What a lie! Everything was a lie!

_Sleep, Doctor, Sleep. Let yourself fall, sunk deep in the dreamless unconsciounsess._

For it was not his dear companion's fate that tormented him most of all and that was the reason he would gladly welcome nothingness of human sleep. He was uncapable of persuade himself that Bill was most important or that people from the village were most important or even his own life! _He cared._ He did. But... He felt guilty. He did not care as much as he should, as he used to, he was unable to _feel_ it properly. What was it? Professional detachment? Could he easly just move on if something went wrong? Could he find himself soon stepping peacefully over their dead bodies, experiencing only weariness? Was he that numb? Too ancient, too worn out to actually _care_?

He was acting out ready to sacrifice himself as always but it was just a habit of something he would do completely naturally, with no second thought, not so long ago.

All he could think of, all he could truly care about was the last being in need of or even deserving such affection. The Master... The Mistress... One person in two bodies. One life on two stages. And one Doctor with two hearts. What's left if there's one heart of his for each of them? No heart for the Doctor himself. Professional detachment.

_Don't you dare to put him before them!_

He was almost able to catch the distant echo of words once spoken to him.

_Wilfred._

The Doctor smiled, recalling the kind-hearted face of his.

How could he not put the Master before the others, before himself? He always did although sometimes his deeds suggested otherwisely. He could execute any Dalek, any day, even if the Dalek was responsible only for a single act of extermination but he would never considered killing the Master – the great monster, the killer, the eater of human kind, the one who was murdering them just to make a point!

The Doctor had no spare heart.

Both of them were borrowed with no intention of returning.

Situation was then wholly hopeless. Whatever was about to happen he would act like the one he promised to be. He would destroy himself for the sake of Bill, Nardole and people from the solar farm. He thought that maybe he ought to die if helping became a habit, if he was just pretending, if he had no heart to make it his moral compass, if his chosen name was just a word, just a sound with no real meaning.

Death would be final if it caught him during regeneration, before it starts or if the damage of his body cells would be too extensive...

So that was it then? He was rescuing out of pure desperation, to silence his sense of being guilty of not caring anymore? He was helping dramatically, to make most of himself, before turning into a monster, before becoming useless?

_Sleep, sleep, Doctor, please, sleep. Let it go._

He clutched his fists at the blanket, covering himself all up, hiding from reality.

Maybe encounter with both the Master and Missy made him return somehow to the primal stage of his life when he was similar to them, with all those treating Earthlings like apes, seeing them as nothing but a bunch of infants running around their funny playground-like planet? If he was changing this way then it was Missy who would take his current place. She was changing into him and maybe he was changing into her or rather into the Master. The Master's most cruel self. But then... Into what the Master was transfiguring? Into something that will replace the Doctor once.

He smiled bitterly at that thought.

Wibbly-wobbly thing, indeed!

So maybe he was still the Doctor in certain sense? With only one patient to cure – the Master. The Mistress will be the new Doctor after he's gone. Mistress... who? They'll ask her soon. He would regenerate and become a different man anyway so he can give the universe a fine replacement instead. Good deal. If only he could be absolutely sure she was not on his other self's side, that he did not corrupt her... Oh, but Missy would do in the end. She has to...

Yet... he wanted to show her the universe himself! He wanted to observe that change of hers with his own eyes! They would be friends again, he would forgive and forget gladly every single crime, he would help her erase the shadow of guilt with decent deeds to come, he would fight the last of her demons away once and for all... He would...

_Stupid Doctor! Silly Doctor! Sleep! Human-ish, thoughty-shutty-uppy sleep! Please... Please..._

“You are whining so loudly that we can't pretend we are sleeping,” the voice came suddenly, closely to the Doctor's ear. He sat down immediately.

The Master was sitting at the brink of his bed.

“How did you?”

“I told you, you were whining too loudly for us to leave it unnoticed,” the other voice appeared out of nowhere.

Missy was seating on the windowsill.

“ _I_ told him,” the Master disagreed.

She gave him well-visible even in the half-light oh-so-done look:

“How many times? _We_ are _one_.”

The Master sighed:

“But _I_ want separation at times!”

The Doctor was tiny bit perplexed by the whole situation but didn't want to lose his wit.

“How could you both enter here so quietly, you mischievous intruders?” he asked, trying hard to make his voice sarcastically nonchalant.

“Weeell...” the Master spoke, sounding suspiciously familiar. “In-tru-da window!”

“That joke was funny a few regenerations ago,” stated the Doctor, covering face with his palm. “I'm asking seriously.”

“We just did,” Missy gave him an impatient response. “You were too busy sobbing internaly to hear us, you chestnut.”

“How long have you been around?”

“How long has it been, sis?” asked the Master, consulting Missy.

“Hm, since the moment you stroke us with your mental wave of oh-how-sad-I-am, I suppose?” she replied thoughtfully, clearly waiting for the Master's confirmation.

“You're right, yes! We had just been in the middle of exchanging sophisticated remarks concerning dismemberment of human flesh when a flood of telephatical whimpering nearly sank us alive so we came to check what's going on,” said the Master, nodding and rubbing his bearded chin.

“Oi! We have just told him that we were trying to sleep!” exclaimed Missy, widening her eyes. “You gave us up, _Master_!”

“We have just told him that we have been _pretending_ we were trying to sleep, _Mistress_!” he pointed out, putting emphasis on certain words.

“Which basically was suppose to mean that we have been _laying quietly in our beds not talking_!” she retorted, imitating his tone.

“Shut up! Both of you!” shouted the Doctor, preventing the Master from opening his mouth again which he was so obviously up to do.

They glared at him like a pair of unfairly punished children, copying each other's expressions in ludicrous way but said nothing.

“Now, my dear universe's oldest toddlers,” spoke te Doctor, skipping his gaze from one to another, “care to explain me precisely what made you haunt me so late at night? I know all about your extraordinarily developed telepathic abilities since the Academy days but, though you were indeed gifted over imagination of our tutors, I cannot quite recall you being so overly sensitive, nearly mind-reader.”

“Oh, Doctor, Doctor!” gasped the Master theatrically. “The older I am the greater I grow! Like the taste of fine wine – the better I am with time.”

Missy made unidentified sarcastic noise.

“You should reconsider your chosen name,” claimed the Doctor unable to hide a foolish grin. “Shall I call you the Poet since now?”

“Hopeless narcissist,” said Missy, shaking her head.

“That was meant to be a compliment,” he murmured, smiling sharply and giving her an intensive look.

The Mistress giggled in response.

“No!” warned the Doctor, waving his hands with expressive disagreement. “No! Just don't do that! Just don't!”

“It seems that grandpa is ruining our tête-à-tête again,” muttered the Master disappointed.

“So rude of him,” taunted Missy. “But look, he's flushed pink, dear!”

“Bloody right, dear, he is!” the Master marveled, exaggerating hilariously. “Even in the darkness I can see that gulity face! Oh, bad, bad, Doctor! Dirty-dirty!”

“Come on!” gasped the Doctor out loud, staring at the ceiling. “Can't you two just stop being silly for a moment? I'm fascinated with the way your ability to connect with other beings increased recently!”

Missy was the first one to become serious.

“It's a matter of being together with my previous self, I guess,” she said, studying the Master's face.

The Master nodded although he was most obviously not pleased with her changing the way of acting.

“He would be one of my most telephatically-gifted regenerations, nearly as gifted as my first one, if it was not for those drums he suffered,” she continued. “His presence affects my skills greatly.”

“ _Suffered_?” the Master growled quietly, glaring at her with disgust. “Is he passed his whining on you?”

“Yes, suffered, dear,” replied the Missy tartly, rolling her eyes. “It's not whining. It's fact.”

“I wouldn't use such pitiful word to describe it though,” muttered the Master spietefully.

“Oh, really?” wondered the Mistress. “But _you_ just did!”

“No, _you_ just did,” said the Master, growing angrier. “ _I_ am not _you_...”

“You probably wanted to say that you are not me just _yet_.”

“What he has _done_ to _me_?” asked the Master quietly after a moment of silence, giving her the look of pure terror.

“He hasn't _done_ anything,” replied Missy calmly. “We have done this to ourselves.”

“How?”

“You will see...”

“But... I am NOT like that, I'm _not_ , I am...”

Missy interrupted him, making short impatient noise.

“Oh, yes, _you are_ , ” she gasped. “Why pretending, Master? You ARE like me even now but you can repress it very effectively, better than I was ever capable of. It's pointless. It may kill you once.”

“No,” he shook his head firmly, “it's just a downside of regenerating into a _girl_.”

It was then Missy's time to express her disgust.

“Rassilon, how magnificent you are at deciving yourself,” she whispered.

The Master and Mistress kept quiet, gazing at each other like they have just seen themselves so clearly for the first time.

For the whole conversation during which they seemed to forgot about the Doctor's presence he was attentively observing them, listening, thinking and getting sadder with every spoken word.

_Hopeless._

“Hopeless,” he rasped involuntary.

“Indeed,” agreed Missy, still glaring in the eyes of her own past.

“Yeah,” admitted the Master, glaring back in the eyes of his own future.

“You astonish me both equally,” spoke the Doctor, breaking their endless gazes fight. “I asked you some simple questions, out of pure curiousity, and you started catfight... just because one did not like the word that the other one used. How immature is that? You're more human-ish than many humans I've met!”

“He's insulting us!” exclaimed Missy offended.

“You see, Doctor,” replied the Master, giving him pitiful look, “God is in the detail. For example you...”

“Looking so casual and witty as always...” continued Missy, nodding.

“Yet this pure curiousity of yours shows you are worried... Not about us...” spoke the Master.

“Not only, anyway,” added Missy.

“But about you, yourself, your doubtfulness, numbness, fate of the others,” said the Master.

“Minding that blurry wave of desperation you did send us through the wall... We suspect you for...” kept saying Missy with smile brightening slowly her features.

“Being an idiot again,” finished the Master visibly proud of himself.

“Could you stop, please, doing that?” reproved the Doctor annoyed, turning his head from one to another. “It's like watching ping-pong match!”

“So what?” spoke the Master and the Mistress at the same time, both smiling widely.

The Doctor rolled his eyes.

“Putting up with one of you is hard to bear but with two is just a nightmare,” he gasped. “But it's very kind of you that you... care.”

“Rassilon... _Care_... _Kind_... How _touchy-feely_ you are!” wondered the Master, making scared face.

“It was always his weakness, dear” acknowledged Missy. “Don't you get stupid ideas. Doctor, I came here not because I am _kind_ or because I _care_ but because it's hardly comfortable now to experience such annoying moaning inside my brain. You are the only one strong enough in here to produce such noisy mess!”

“My gorgeous twin is right,” admitted the Master half-jokingly, “I came not because I _care_. I came to check on you, distract you, piss you off and make you so exhausted that you would really fall asleep after that and let me live in blissful silence.”

“Well, then you're doing it right,” said the Doctor viciously, “I am exhausted already. Thus just go away. I'm fine and I'm going to sleep. Night-night.”

“Speaking of curiousity,” said Missy, ignoring the Doctor's words, “What made you so weepy, dear?”

“Was that your poor toaster-friend?” asked the Master meanly. “Or maybe those funny little village people so obviously destined to die? Shall I eat them all to put an end to your suffering, maybe? Don't be shy. Just ask. I'm already getting... HUNGRY.”

“Don't you dare!” growled the Doctor, moving closely to the Master, seeing faces of every person, every child from the solar farm and finding strenght in this vision. _He cared._ _He did. Now._

“I could free you from that responsibility, I can just remove it, ” promised the other Time Lord, speaking quietly, coming closer and closer. “We could travel together. You and I. The three of us against the whole universe. Just like you always wanted, hm? We could set the rules even. We could blow all the bad guys away. How would you like that, grumpy old man?”

“I...” started the Doctor with something similar to hesitation and moved closer to the other's face so that there remained only a few inches of space between them. “I strongly advice you to... _shut up_ or I will _bite your nose off_.”

Missy giggledd, looking at her nails. She had tried it already and it didn't work so she knew the answer before it actually came.

The Master yet was almost convinced that the Doctor caught during a moment of weakness would maybe... just maybe...

“You are an idiot, you know that, don't you?” informed the Master after a while, still not backing off.

“I know,” agreed the Doctor, smiling wickedly and then added somewhat conspirationally, “and you know what?”

The Master frowned, shaking his head suspiciously.

“You... ” whispered the Doctor, still smiling and making his eyes huge, “...TOO.”

The Master rolled his eyes.

“Bloody hilarious,” he said irritated, moving away finally.

Missy gave the Doctor THAT LOOK and they just began to laugh. It was not exactly funny but somehow the longer they laughed over it the harder it was to stop.

“Don't you two choke yourselves,” growled the Master, nearly grinding his teeth.

But his remark, for some reason, they found extraordinarily hilarious and kept laughing even harder.

When both of them ceased their laugh finally and were gasping for the air the Master spoke again, very quietly:

“And maybe it was not only your casual fear for the others or the fear that you will turn into me? Maybe you were so afraid that _she_ will not turn into you?”

The last sparkles of joy vanished instantly after that question. Missy said nothing, only downcast her eyes to hide any hint of thoughts that may appear in her gaze. The Doctor's eyes were suddenly distant, distracted mirroring his upset.

The Mistress stood up after a long moment of silence and cast her eyes upon the Master. In the darkness the Doctor couldn't see her face yet clearly the Master did. He smiled. What was it? Sadness? Pity? Taunt? Mix of them all? Was that another repressive mask of his? What was then really under it? He couldn't quite decipher.

Missy passed both of them by wordlessly and when she was on her way out, holding her palm on the handle, she turned and looked directly at the Doctor:

“Night-night, Doctor,” she said calmly, smiling politely and left them alone.

The Master's husky laugh broke the uncomfortable silence that fell after her disappearance.

“Oh, Doctor, Doctor,” he said in the end. “What have you done to me?”

“Nothing. I've done nothing,” he replied somehow disturbed.

“No, you have...” nodded the Master dead serious. “You've been always treating me like a broken toy. The toy you believed you could fix. Is that friendship? Or selfishness?”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm not the lady-version and at this point I can tell you that it makes me sick to even think of being so _like her_... in some ways. She's brilliant, a proper genius. And that makes her beautiful. But she's also broken. Much more than I've ever been. And this is your fault. You will kill her. _Me_. You will kill _me_. Can your cute coinscience actually endure such weight?”

“She's grasping the enormousity of what she had done, that is true, but she's gradually changing...” spoke the Doctor with some anger. “You just can't stand the thought that you may be good, that you may really, properly turn good and that _I_ would make it happen!”

“You are blind,” replied the Master only tiny bit louder from whispering. “When you had been thinking that you destroyed Gallifrey how it made you feel deep inside that saint heart of yours? She had done worse things than that and she'd been doing nothing but that sort of things through all her life. If she turns good then the awerness of it will most obviously kill her... Kill _me_. You are killing _me_ this way, can't you see? Is that friendship? Adjusting someone to your vision of the universe, changing just to make you _feel good_? Well done, I should say then. My own demons will consume me so you won't have to kill me with bare hands. I'll do you a favor!”

He was almost shouting at the end of his speech.

The Doctor was paralyzed with the Master's words.

“And, moreover, I will thank you for that,” he muttered after a moment. “Splendid was your choice of the name. So accurate. The Doctor. Healer. Imagine then that I am a cancer. You have a duty to cut me off. Professional detachment, yeah? You cannot actually cure a cancer, can you? You can only cure a man. But what if that cancer is the actual man? Then you will kill the man, killing that cancer. For they are one. You are the Doctor. It's a part of your job. Go on then. Upgrade me like I upgraded Bill.  _Do it_. Just. Cut. Me. Off.”

 They were glaring at each other for a moment that seemed to last eternaly.

“No,” murmured the Doctor firmly, breaking the tense eventually, “your interpretation is completely messed up. It's just so convenient for you think that you are a cancer, that being evil is just what you are. It's so much easier to keep going like this than fight, than doing your best to change. You are afraid of your own demons, that you won't be able to cope with them once you let them out of your head. You can sense that Missy's changing, passing you by and you can't quite comprehend it, it's beyond your narrow imagination that you have it coming as well. You are scared, Master, so scared of what you become. Please, don't be. You don't have to. I'm sorry but... This. Is. Good.”

The Master sighed.

“And this is just so convenient for you to think like that, I guess. For alternative would be much too horrible,” the other Time Lord stated simply, standing up. “Night-night, Doc.”

The Doctor was observing him carefully as he was going out of his room.

“Oh, and do not disturb yourself with overthinking. I can't pretend I'm sleeping when you... You know...” he spoke just before leaving. “By the way, these thoughts of yours... They are mostly rubbish. Night.”

The Doctor nodded and cracked a smile as the Master closed the door.

_He cared._

 


End file.
